Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Story of Adrianna from Poland

It was a sunny, spring day. As always before examination period I was reading a book sitting in a library. I would never expect that this simple, ordinary day will literally change my life. Back then I was 21 years old, and I could simply describe myself as a young, ambitious psychology student. I have just graduated prestigious high school and started to continue my education in a way I always desired. I felt like I will go through the best years of my life. “Hey, I am so sorry to disturb you but I just couldn’t hold myself” I heard suddenly. “ I saw you before here and I was always really shy to come and talk to you but I had to try” First thing I noticed when I looked up, were a huge brown eyes and extremely black eyelashes, just staring at me. “ You must think I am a creep, I am so sorry, My name is Mohammad, and I just wanted to know your name”. I was all shocked because something like this never happened to me. Not only that a stranger comes to me but the fact that his name is so highly related to a stereotype of arab guys which I had in my head. From what I remember now, I had a really extreme scheme of all muslims, which of course have been created by media and by random books which I have read. I got a bit scared in the beginning but I smiled to him. “ Hello, nice to meet you, my name is Adrianna” Back then I would never expect that this trivial words will influence my life and put it on extremely different path comparing to which I was on. After many meetings and talks me and Mohammad got married. He was a medicine student in Poland, originally coming from Sweden. Our mental connection and the way of understanding was like form the movies. We simply couldn’t stay away from each-other. We were fighting against his friends, my friends and my family. Everybody was against us being together and nobody wanted to accept, until they saw how in love we are. How amazingly we understand each other. In the beginning our relationship was a secret for his parents. They were threatening him from the beginning of his studies in Poland. That if he will meet any polish girl he would no longer be their son. And they will do everything for this not to happen. Despite of this we couldn’t live without each other and our plan was that I will get prepared to meet them and when I am ready and when Mohammad is finishing his studies we will tell them about everything. Since I remember I was always interested about religion. Of course my interests were focusing on Christianity issues but still I tried to seek for knowledge for years. I had a lot of questions which raised after me reading a Bible and many different articles and historical facts. I never could find anybody who was able to explain me or answer me. That was giving me a huge intellectual “headache” but during my life I learnt to ignore it. After I met Mohammad my “thirst” of gaining new knowledge was finally fulfilled. In the beginning I was just so fascinated about the way he prays and how sincerely he is doing it. I started feeling that something is missing in my life. We have gone through so many deep discussions. I was so happy that for the first time in my life somebody has such a huge knowledge about religion, politics and history. I remember how hard for me was to accept many stuff I was finding out. Especially I couldn’t just blindly take information and fallow them. My research about Islam took almost 2 years. During this time I was reading both Quran and Bible, I was studying history of early Christianity and Islam. I watched plenty of documentary movies both in polish and English. The hardest thing was for me to get rid of the wrong stereotype I had in my head. I was so scared to define myself as a Muslim. But one day I just couldn’t run anymore. I sat on the floor in the living room and started praying with Mohammad. I felt like I finally found my peace. I already started learning Arabic so it was not hard at all to memorize the words of the Quran. I did not care anymore about the society, people and my family. I made a decision by myself. And it was the best decision I could ever make. And that would be the best ending, and my fairy tail could last forever. Being a Muslim with a perfect man by my side, even supported by family and friends, no matter what I do. Unfortunatelly for me my hard journey was just about to begin and I was completely unaware of this. Me and Mohammad was sure that now when I converted, it will be much easier to tell his parents and to make them accept us. Especially that I already met a lot of Muslims who simply was so astonished by my conversion and by my knowledge. When Mohammad graduated, we have already planned everything. He was supposed to go home talk to his parents and after couple of weeks I was supposed to join him. My flight ticket was already bought and I was waiting. The day when I got a phone call from my husband after he told his parents, will be in my memory till the rest of my life. He was crashed. He never expected such an extreme reaction. His mother was literally threatening that she will kill herself. Or that she will destroy me. That it is impossible for us to continue and that they will never accept a polish girl, no matter that she can be a good Muslim. They were blackmailing Mohammad and not even giving him a choice. I am not here to judge them . They had their own reasons of such behavior and I strongly believe they are not bad people but Mohammad was simply too weak to ignore their words. He told me all this and said that it is impossible for us to be together in such case. He was fighting for us and doing everything that they accept us, but it was just making it worse. We decided that it is better that we will not continue. It was so extremely hard. Not only loosing the love of my life but being left alone as a new converted Muslim in polish society. Ailhamduillah I have a lot of Muslim friends from Sweden and they literally forced me to come to them. It was Ramadan and I needed them a lot. I have been in Sweden for 1 month living with Muslim family and learning more and more about the religion. During that time Mohammad just couldn’t leave, he started contacting me and telling me that he will fight more. That he cant leave his family but that he will do everything what he can for us to be together. But all this was just empty words. I have been waiting for months, not moving on with my life, waiting for his acts. But he was just either fooling me or being in a really hard situation when he had to choose between love of his life and love of his parents. Every time I started to forget him he was calling me and crying about how much he loves me. Until now he neither cant let me go nor he can leave his family. The only thing I can say that I pray to Allah for strength. Ailhamduilah I found my way and even if it takes so much pain I happy I could be on the right path and I am sure that Allah has a plan for me.